Review: Daughters

While mowing the lawn today, I realized the most important thing in considering The Jesus Lizard’s legacy is how completely they defined a sound - pretty much, thick bass, pounding drums, creeping guitar, and brig-hostage vocals are all what we think of as “noise rock” most of the time, and no band has better exemplified this than the Jesus Lizard. As a result, there are bands today that are usually well-received with the “Jesus Lizard Stipulation” - that is, “they sound like The Jesus Lizard, but they are good at sounding like The Jesus Lizard, so its #chill.”
I’ve been into several of these bands since my initial exposure to The Jesus Lizard the summer before I started college, and of the ones I can think of in The Jesus Lizard genre, the best are Clockcleaner, Pissed Jeans, and Daughters (on their most recent album). Its almost as if these bands each picked a personality of their homage and exemplified it as perfectly as possible. For Clockcleaner, that was the “Blockbuster” personality - the guy in a ten gallon hat at the roadhouse bar who sits uncomfortably close to the bathroom and kind of develops a lazy eye as he makes rape jokes. Pissed Jeans went the working man route - the guy who just got off his shift at the steel mill, drank half a case of Keith Stone, and stumbles loudly around town looking for trouble (“Monkey Trick”).
Daughters, however, have exemplified what might be my favorite Jesus Lizard on their self titled album from earlier this year - the rabid mouth breather running naked through the woods, completely snapped, a la the first three tracks of Liar. The unrepentant raw energy of the album is astounding, and all the songs are really expertly crafted to deliver prime visceral impact.
Opener “The Virgin” starts things breathlessly, with the sort of riff-and-pull structure that never settles, instead building into a full feedback and double-bass rage, before breaking into a tremolo’d guitar note and starting over again. “The Hit”, the strongest single track, builds off a riff that rolls like a Panzer through a barn and breaks down into a the sort of slide riff Duane Denison might imagine for a Jesus Lizard song after a few too many Boilermakers.
“Our Queens (One Is Many, Many Are One)” starts with a guitar part that could be from a Jesus Lizard album (duh) - before going off the rails into a grindesque rip up and landing in a mosh, catching its breath, and building to another peak with a guitar part that sounds like a record scratching itself behind its bleeding hackles. “The Unattractive, Portable Head” begins with a triangle hit, has fucking handclaps - that start right as there is a wail so unearthly you can’t tell if its singer Alexis Marshall or a twisted guitar string, and ends with a twisted-organ sing along. The album ends 28 minutes after it began, and leaves the listener without an ounce of gristle.
However, there is a problem with the album - it is bastard or orphan, depending on how you think about it. As a result of the recording of the album, the band broke up (later being reformed by Marshall and drummer John Syverson to release this album) because of the arguments resulting from the drastic shift in sound from Daughters’ previous work to this album.
Daughters’ first and second full lengths, Canada Songs and Hell Songs, are far less accessible than Daughters. Canada Songs is a pretty straight-up arty grindcore album and Hell Songs shows more of the The Jesus Lizard strain but still being way more terse and mathy than Daughters. Singer Alexis Marshall called said of Daughters (I jacked this quote from Wikipedia):

"It's so easy to steer it and try to be accepted, and do this because this is what's good, and this is what's going to make our band popular. That's no good. That's not art. That's shit. It's not even shit. It's less than shit. What's less than shit? I don't even know. Trying to be other bands... that's less than shit."

Harsh words from an artist about a work he had a part in. What I find most conflicting is this: why would he allow Daughters to be released after reforming the band if he didn’t like the sound? And furthermore, I might be off here, but Daughters is not exactly going to get DC 101 airplay. The noise and grind scenes are pretty self-contained, but I imagine there is some cross-interest (I mean, I like Burmese just as much as I like Magrudergrind), and while there is less breathless screaming and more David Yow dog-gnashing, and the songs are generally longer and have a higher level of production polish, this doesn’t translate to “popularity” in my mind when. They are still making loud music that begs the casual listener to turn it off or kill themselves.
This brings me back to my original Jesus Lizard comparison. I don’t know what “other bands” Marshall felt guitarist Nicholas Andrew Sadler was trying to be like with Daughters, but I imagine The Jesus Lizard would be an apt guess. And for that, I think this album shines - it takes a Jesus Lizard personality, owns it, expands it with its own past experience (the grindier, artier tendencies) and creates something new in the process, a different sound for a band that may be more accessible - you know, like stronger song structure and repeated parts - but is by no means a selling out. I wish they could have continued in this vein - as long as bands try to sound like The Jesus Lizard, I’ll be listening.




hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?agminewjmze

Pitchfork In Review - Friday

So I am incredibly behind in my blogging, but to make it up here's something on all the rad stuff I saw at this year's Pitchfork Fest.

The first set was Mission of Burma performing their seminal masterpiece "Vs." Of the three performances, this is the one I most anticipated and, coincidentally, the one that I felt was the best. "Vs" was an album that's been with me since sophomore year of high school and I still listen to it regularly almost 4 years later - I was not at all disappointed. Miller, Prescott, and Conley (Weston on the boards as well of course) straight raged through the set, playing some rad B-sides from the album (included on the right-before Matador reissue, which I have posted below) to warm up before launching headlong into the bounce and fury of "Secrets." And despite their power and astute tight professionalism, they really gave an attendee the feeling that they were humbled and honored that they had been elevated to Classic status. That, and the fact that they forgot the order of the album and joked about it, blaming the fans for not correcting them when they started, made theirs the set of the night for me.
Mission of Burma - Vs.
http://www.mediafire.com/?mcc4jswbetx


Next up, Sebadoh performed "Bubble and Scrape." I have been a Sebadoh fan for some time, but never really gave this album much of a listen until a few weeks before the festival to prepare. I must say, I feel that "III" is a better album and kind of wish that they had been asked to perform that one. At any rate, they offered a by-and-large solid show, and although the momentum was slowed by constant between-song retuning and banter, you got the feeling that the guys (at least Lou and Jason, Gaffney kind of came off as bored or annoyed, which isn't really surprising) were having a good time and very thankful for the honor of an ATP catering. Lou made the valuable point that he couldn't understand why they were performing after MoB, who they idolized (against pleas not to) to as kids, which I kind of agreed with, but getting to hear "Homemade" live was too cool to continue harping on about minor complaints.
Sebadoh - Bubble and Scrape
http://www.mediafire.com/?modxnzvwtc2

Last, but certainly not least, was the mighty Public Enemy and "It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back." Despite, what I felt, was relatively bad mixing at times, the album came through strong, and Chuck D and Flav straight killed their parts. They also played alot of PE classics at the end of the album set, which was great to hear, but honestly, by that time I was so exhausted from touring Chicago and moving at the earlier sets that I just lay on the ground and enjoyed them from afar. Added bonus: the Bomb Squad warming the crowd up with some dub-heavy beats. Certainly one of the strongest performances of the weekend, but what did you expect? I can't say much more, the material and personalities involved speak for themselves.
Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
http://www.mediafire.com/?n30tzlt0tff

I'll give my Saturday report in a few days, be sure to check back in.

Moonwatching

The great advantage of living near Record and Tape Exchange in Fairfax is that I can walk in once a week and have a whole new set of decisions to make as to where my money will go. This past week, the great find was a copy of "Selenography" by Rachel's. Granted, I am a sucker for anything released on Touch and Go / Quarterstick, but "Selenography" is still a magnificent pull because it is unlike anything else I listen to.
This is my first Rachel's album, so a brief intro: Rachel's is a sort of musical collective (as I understand it) from the Louisville scene that have stretched the whole post-rock concept to the point where most of the time, you feel like you are listening to WETA after a night of heavy drinking. Most of these pieces (I'm not sure "songs" is appropriate) are structured around a basic acoustic guitar / piano / violin setup, ornamented by other strings, sounds, and percussion for swells of movement or texture. This setup, of course, is destined to be fragmented by the very premise of the group. "Kentucky Nocturne" resembles a vision of the Old South, starting out like a fingerpicked front-porch ditty and becoming the sort of thing that would move a Reconstruction plantation house party. This is followed by "Honeysuckle Suite," which begins with sweeping harpsichord and fleshes out into a full-blown Baroquesque beeswarm - followed by "Artemisia," a vibraphone'd trip-hop lucid dream complete with a Mogwai answering machine message playing over it.
Yeah, sure, the whole postmodern post-rock thing is played out and probably not all that missed outside the realm of true believers, but this is the perfect soundtrack to a sticky summer evening of sitting on a porch, having a smoke, and reading Flann O'Brien. So check it out if any of that sounds at all appealing to you.

Rachel's: Selenography
http://www.mediafire.com/?pa2jdnv5gzm

It's Always So Goddamn Hot...

The Northern Virginia summer is cruel and unrelenting. The humidity makes the air too thick to actually breathe, and with temperatures only increasing by the day, this problem will only get more severe through July and August. However, we Northern Virginia drivers who are too cheap to use air conditioning in our cars are not without resource and respite - we have Dre and Snoop. Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" and Snoop (Doggy) Dogg's "Doggystyle" are the way we have to cope with these inhospitable conditions as we plow through stop signs on our way to work or blast down the Fairfax County Parkway.
They've have already been praised and discussed to death, but I have tried to spend my summer reexamining these albums and their hazy brilliance. There really is nothing like G-Funk for making your shoulders drop back in your car seat and your hand to find its way to the 12 on your wheel, and "The Chronic" made all of this possible. What I've learned from my study this summer, though, is that I feel that "Doggystle" is the superior album.
Nothing against "The Chronic" of course, but when it comes down to it, I feel the beats are stronger on "Doggystle," as if Dre used "The Chronic" to introduce the style and "Doggystyle" to perfect it. Think of it like this, if it makes it any easier - Drive Like Jehu's self titled album introduced their brand of mathy noise hardcore, but "Yank Crime" hits more viscerally and drops your gut on the floor as it grinds through your skull more perfectly (possibly a future article of these masterpieces). "The Chronic" is the thesis statement of G-Funk, "Doggystyle" is the body of evidence.
The other advantage is that "Doggystyle" is Snoop's album. No one, absolutely no one, sounds better than Snoop on the G-Funk thickcreep, and while all over "The Chronic," the focus is on him on his technical solo debut. Dre and the Dogg Pound / Death Row cew are all good rappers, but Snoop is a timeless original, as everyone should know. Plus, "Doggystyle," is, in plain terms, just more fun. Try to listen to Snoop's ultra-smooth take "Lodi Dodi" and not smile or straight laugh over something.

So check the rhyme and make your own call:


Dr. Dre - The Chronic
http://www.mediafire.com/?fw3ljyj533m


Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle
http://www.mediafire.com/?o2vmslvz9w5

The Long Way Around

Setting: Rapeman practice space, Chicago, 1987.
Characters: David Wm. Sims - Rapeman bassist
Rey Washam: Rapeman drummer
Steve Albini: Rapeman guitarist/ singer, general asshole, my hero

DWS: Where the hell is Steve, he's never been this late to practice!
RW: Maybe he's still fucked up from the Butthole Surfers show last night, I hear he -
- Steve Albini bursts through door, disheveled and excited -
SA: Guys, you'll never believe what the fuck just happened, I went to 1997 with these two surfer cocksmokers in this phonebooth!
- DWS and RW blankly stare at SA -
RW: Steve, you should go home, you are clearly way too fucked up from the Surfers last night to -
SA: No man, I'm totally fucking serious, and here's the best part, we mattered!
DWS: What?
SA: Look, we went to this record store so the phonebooth bros could get a Van Halen album or some shit like that, and the guy was playing this album by this band that sounded like MacKaye's DC ilk playing "Remain in Light" geek funk!
DWS: So you want this album to be more like that or something?
SA: Nah man, because when he saw how much I was getting into it, the dude behind the counter put this other album on, that sounded just like us playing the album before!
RW: Fuck, so what are you getting at?
SA: The point is we have to stick with the songs I wrote about my fucked sex life and the ZZ Top cover, because in ten years, its still going to be one of the best things out.
- RW and DWS shrug, finish their beers, and begin pounding the shit out of their instruments -


That could be the worst one act ever written, but here's the albums I referenced:

Rapeman: Two Nuns and a Packmule:
http://www.mediafire.com/?jmzndl5aea3


The Dismemberment Plan: The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified
http://www.mediafire.com/?lnjiextxzb5


Talking Heads: Remain In Light
http://www.mediafire.com/?nf48jirbve4


Fugazi: Thirteen Songs
http://www.mediafire.com/?j5mm01y8nns


Six Finger Satellite: Severe Exposure
http://www.mediafire.com/?kemj9pb2tnl